The Key to Braised Mackerel: Is It the Mackerel or the Radish?
The Key to Braised Mackerel: Is It the Mackerel or the Radish?
As I prepped the fish, that odd blue-haired guest's stare bored straight through me. It was hard to ignore.
First, I'd mistaken her for a messenger from the princess.
Then she'd tried to recruit me to her palace.
She'd shown up out of nowhere demanding Sebastian, devoured a plate of fried flatfish, and fled without paying.
Now here she was again, seated at the table closest to the kitchen, eyes locked onto me.
How should I put this?
It was an intense look.
Half like she regarded me as her sworn enemy, half like she was sizing up a talent she still wanted to claim.
Just what is she?
A princess from a neighboring kingdom?
No.
A princess wouldn't show up in the middle of nowhere like this.
Viscount Britten's territory didn't even share a border with another kingdom.
The nearest one was a good two to three weeks' hard ride away.
A self-proclaimed princess, then?
Probably just a wealthy young noblewoman.
A guest visiting the viscount's household, maybe.
I half-ignored her gaze and focused on my prep.
The catch today was heavy on fresh mackerel.
The fish dish I'd planned was braised mackerel.
I'd debated between grilling and braising.
I went with the braise mostly because the woman in front of me radiated stress like a bonfire.
Something restless in her eyes.
The way her body trembled at the sight of the fish.
The deep, unguarded sighs she kept letting slip.
I didn't know what had put that look on her face.
Without knowing her circumstances, I had no comforting words or gestures to offer.
The only thing I could do was my job.
A reasonable dose of heat is perfect for burning off stress.
That's why I'd thought of braised mackerel.
Tender radish and mackerel, steeped deep in a bubbling, spicy sauce.
A single bowl of properly braised mackerel, the seasoning soaked so deep it tastes impossibly rich—that stuff could thaw a frozen-solid heart.
Its sibling dish is braised cutlassfish.
I'd had a conviction ever since I started cooking, years ago.
I wanted the people who ate my food to smile while they ate it.
Not just to solve their hunger. To release their stress. To lift their mood with something genuinely delicious.
It was the same when I served in the knight order.
Every time the knights finished a brutal training session and revived themselves with my cooking—
"Lucas! Your food is the absolute best!"
"How the hell is this better than my wife's cooking?"
"Move in with me, Lucas!"
Whenever my fellow knights kicked up a fuss over my food, I got this weird, warm buzz of satisfaction.
I kept the cook knight post, grumbling all the while, and it wasn't just to save my own skin.
That's probably why.
Why I wanted to serve the best damn braised mackerel of my life to a woman who looked ready to cry, watching the fish get butchered with her eyes squeezed tight.
"If the fish frightens you, there's no need to watch the preparation."
"No. I have to see it."
"...Understood."
She was clearly terrified of the thing, so why keep insisting on watching?
Biting her lip, eyes swimming with unshed tears, she finally broke.
Some story behind it, clearly.
The mood was completely different from her last visit. Awkward, I kept my hands moving and finished prepping the ingredients.
Maybe the viscount's son broke her heart.
I cut the radish and potatoes into chunks, then pulled out the dried kelp, dried anchovies, and spicy chilies.
If anyone knew how much trial-and-error it took to cultivate these chilies, they'd cry their eyes out.
Contract farming partnerships with the locals, crossbreeding who knows how many varieties...
Not interested?
Fine.
I'll save that story.
There's also the saga behind how we started growing green onions and potatoes at scale...
Still not interested?
I'd hoped to chatter a little while I worked, but oh well.
I finely chopped a single chili from my specially bred extra-spicy batch and added it to a strainer with the kelp and anchovies.
Personally, I love dropping whole chilies straight into the broth, but people around here struggle with pure capsaicin.
I needed a gentle, coating warmth, not a punch in the throat, so I'd steep it in the strainer, then pull it out.
I filled a pot with water, dropped in the big radish and potato chunks, and added the flavoring sachet to start the broth.
While the water came to a boil, I blended minced garlic, chili powder, ginger, fish sauce drawn from fermented fish, and soy sauce.
Once the water was bubbling in earnest, I fished out the strainer and added the seasoning paste I'd prepared.
You had to pull the kelp and anchovies at the right moment. Leave them in too long and a bitter edge seeps into the broth and wrecks the finish.
Bubble, bubble!
The red-seasoned water boiled.
Then I added the knight restaurant's secret weapon: Magic Powder M—ack, ahem!
That one was developed in collaboration with the mages...
Never mind.
Anyway, I slipped in the mackerel—gutted and cut into generous chunks.
Gurgle, gurgle!
I let it all boil down, waiting until the fish was thoroughly steeped and the liquid reduced.
The guest squeezed her eyes shut.
A tear rolled down one cheek, but her nose twitched anyway.
"Smells good, doesn't it?"
"What?"
"This is my favorite moment—when the chili paste melds with the ingredients and gives off this aroma."
"..."
"It's the moment all the parts start becoming one finished dish."
I love this part.
How will it taste?
How spicy will the stew be?
Will there be a note of sweetness?
Will it taste different from what I already know?
That feeling of condensed anticipation packed into a single dish—I love it even more.
And the look on a customer's face when all that anticipation finally crystallizes into a finished plate in front of them.
Of course, I love eating too.
And I want to share what I love.
The sheer pleasure of sharing a flavor you know with another person.
You know this taste, right?
That place is so good.
Let's go together sometime.
Isn't that exactly the true path of the gourmet?
"Let me ask you just one thing."
"I must decline any offer as a palace chef."
"I have no intention of asking again once I've been refused."
"Then what is it?"
"That arrow meat, turned into soup... is it happy?"
I looked at the mackerel, slowly cooking through.
In the furiously boiling, ever-reducing broth, the mackerel was gradually taking on deeper and deeper flavor.
Is the meat happy?
How the hell should I know?
I'm no druid. I'm no necromancer.
Animals—especially mackerel that have been dead for ages—what do I know about their feelings?
But one thing I do know.
"The person eating that meat is going to be happy."
"Why?"
What a foolish question.
Why are they happy?
"Because it's delicious."
"The person who eats it is happy... because it's delicious?"
"Yes."
"Don't overthink it. We cook and eat because we've all got to eat to live, right?"
She fell silent.
The mackerel had cooked through. I topped it with thinly sliced onion and green onion.
Once the onion and green onion had softened completely, I served the freshly made braised mackerel to my beautiful blue-haired guest.
The pot, set atop a Brustar, was still bubbling hot.
I set white rice beside it, along with the side dishes and kimchi I'd made that morning.
"Today's chef's special: braised mackerel."
"..."
The food was right in front of her, but she couldn't lift her hand.
"...I'm sorry."
I didn't know who she was apologizing to, but once the apology was done, she picked up her spoon.
She scooped up a spoonful of broth and drank.
Slurp.
The blue-haired guest's eyes widened.
"How is it?"
"...It's delicious. Truly delicious."
The tears started to fall.
Did I make it too spicy?
First time I've ever seen someone cry while eating my food. Not sure how to handle it.
She began her meal in earnest.
***
From that day on, Michelle found she could no longer stomach the food of the Dragon Palace.
At first, it was the trauma of having eaten her friends.
The moment she realized everything she'd ever eaten was fish, she was wretched for an entire day.
For three days, she ate nothing at all.
Shame and guilt tormented her.
But as time passed, hunger began to torment her far more than the trauma.
Every fish around her looked like that fried dish she had eaten.
Fried arrow meat.
Fried flat meat.
Fried bloom meat.
Fried squid.
Fry.
Fry.
Fry.
When hunger finally overwhelmed the trauma, she tasted the dish brought by the palace chef.
—Eat, Your Highness. You must eat to live, mustn't you?
But the food her chef made no longer held its old flavor.
It was dry. It was tough.
The fish dishes she'd once thought tender suddenly reeked of that off-putting raw scent.
So she couldn't eat.
Because it wasn't delicious.
I need that man's cooking.
So she sought out the place where she'd first seen him.
She traced her memories, intending to track down his restaurant.
As fate would have it, she spotted the cook fishing just as he had that day, returning to his shop with his catch.
She followed him again.
Mourning the fish caught by that man.
Mourning?
What right do I have?
I'm no different from him.
She pushed away the dark thoughts clawing at her.
Sitting in his kitchen and watching him cook was the highest respect she could pay to the fish that man had caught.
To watch them to the very end of their path.
That was a princess's duty.
I'm sorry, unnamed fish.
Unlike Sebastian, these weren't creatures she'd ever faced before.
But they were still among the fish she was meant to protect.
The sight was brutal, but she didn't look away.
She faced it to the end.
And through it all, the delicious scent brushing her nose tempted her without mercy.
Ah.
This is it.
This impossible aroma.
This scent that burrows deep into the mind and ignites raw appetite.
Tears welled from self-loathing.
But beyond that, she was collapsing from starvation.
It had already been a week since she'd last eaten properly.
Her stomach was screaming at her to live.
"Smells good, doesn't it?"
"What?"
"This is my favorite moment—when the chili paste melds with the ingredients and gives off this aroma."
"..."
"It's the moment all the parts start becoming one finished dish."
This man who had approached her.
The man who killed her friend.
Yet a man strangely impossible to hate.
A man who made food dangerous enough to corrupt her very tongue.
She asked him.
"Let me ask you just one thing."
"I must decline any offer as a palace chef."
"I have no intention of asking again once I've been refused."
"Then what is it?"
"That arrow meat, turned into soup... is it happy?"
He paused, then answered.
"The person eating that meat is going to be happy."
"Why?"
"Because it's delicious."
"The person who eats it is happy... because it's delicious?"
"Yes."
"Don't overthink it. We cook and eat because we've all got to eat to live, right?"
Don't overthink it?
The words pierced her chest.
How could she not overthink it?
The fish were all her subjects, those she was meant to rule.
But that resolution melted away the moment she took her first sip of the braised mackerel broth Lucas set before her.
The broth, sweet and spicy, thickly coated her tongue with a velvety smoothness.
The flavor wrapped around her tongue, swept across it, and slipped swiftly down her throat.
Even as the liquid traveled down into her stomach, its taste lingered throughout her mouth.
"Ah."
She felt the strength of an arrow fish darting through the deep sea.
She shouldn't be doing this.
She mustn't.
"How is it?"
"...It's delicious. Truly delicious."
The broth alone was overwhelmingly good.
Better than any palace cuisine she had ever tasted.
"Try the radish and the godeungeo together."
"Godeungeo?"
"That's what we call arrow meat in my homeland."
"Godeungeo..."
Calling it by a different name seemed to ease the guilt, just a little.
She cut a piece of the silky softened radish and a piece of mackerel, lifting them together on her spoon.
She submerged them deep in the red seasoning, then laid them atop the white rice.
She'd learned from past experience.
In this restaurant, every dish achieved true harmony only when eaten with the rice served beside it.
It had been the same with the fried flatfish.
It had shown its true worth only alongside this rice.
She lifted the spoon, mackerel and cooked radish over rice.
"Ah."
The mackerel flesh, cooked springy-tender yet still moist.
The radish, hot and steeped in seasoning, releasing a deep, rich flavor the moment it hit her mouth.
The rice mixing with it all, tangled in the savory seasoning.
The firm body of the mackerel, the seasoning-saturated radish, the texture of the rice.
And weaving between them all, the subtle depth of the sauce wrapped everything together.
A sigh of admiration escaped her at the harmonious flavor spreading through her mouth.
She was happy.
All the thoughts that had been torturing her just moments before scattered like mist.
And into the space where anguish had been, a profound fullness of happiness rushed in.
Her spirits lifted.
The corners of her mouth rose.
The mackerel moved in her mouth as if it were swimming the great ocean.
She could almost feel the fish's power.
So this is it.
This is the happiness that man spoke of.
Her body felt weightless, buoyant.
She felt as though she were gliding over the surface of the sea.
In this moment, she became the arrow fish—no, the godeungeo.
She was living the dream of swimming the vast ocean it had never been able to achieve.
Her spoon moved.
Her long-empty stomach lurched.
More.
Give me more.
Feed me more.
I want to eat every last bit of this delicious food.
Her hand moved of its own accord.
She couldn't stop it.
Before she knew it, a whole bowl of rice had vanished.
"..."
Michelle looked at Lucas, her eyes bright.
"Chef, one more bowl."
What shone in her eyes was the most fundamental urge of any living creature: appetite.
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★★★★★
It felt like swimming through the ocean.
That's not an experience just anyone can have.
The allure of a dish that lets you taste something only special beings can experience is incredible.
This braised mackerel does exactly that.
It's a taste that made me forget all the things I'd been agonizing over.
It must be because their wishes are held within the dish.
The sweetness of the fully cooked radish and the savory depth of the seasoning meet the clean, firm flesh of the mackerel in perfect harmony.
The spicy flavor that pricks the tongue and blasts away stress is unique.
If you're weighed down by worries, I recommend this anytime.
Recommended Dish: Fish Cuisine - Braised Mackerel.
-Michelle-
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